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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024883">Deals and Autographs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflySong/pseuds/FireflySong'>FireflySong</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>First Name Basis [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Until Dawn (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(slightly) steamy kiss at the end?, Blackmail, F/M, Fluff and Humor, and the shenanigans that ensue, i dont know man, its short and sweet i don't know what to tell you, just josh being josh and teasing ash over her crush</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:07:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,984</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024883</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflySong/pseuds/FireflySong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashley has a secret. One she will never, ever tell anyone even on pain of death. The secret is this: buried deep in a drawer filed with random bits and bobs is a journal. The journal in question is fairly innocuous looking all things considered, there’s a baby pug on the front cover wearing a pair of glasses and sleeping on top of a book, but it’s whats inside that can never see the light of day. The first few hundred or so pages are embarrassing enough on their own, filled with the unpolished writings of a twelve year-old’s imaginations, but it’s the last couple of pages in question that terrify her. So that being said, it’s not that it’s super traumatic or anything, or even that she’s murdered someone, or one that will cause everyone she loves and cares for to hate and shun her. It’s just super embarrassing, and the idea of anyone —especially Chris— finding out is enough to make her want to die.</p><p>So to the surprise of absolutely no one, Josh is the one who finds out about it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ashley Brown &amp; Josh Washington, Ashley Brown/Chris Hartley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>First Name Basis [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Deals and Autographs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>you know how as a kid you were convinced that you were gonna make it big as a celebrity, or musician, or whatever, so you practice writing an autograph that you're sure is gonna be in high demand and your fans will clamor for one day? or when you were in a crush so deep that it felt like true love and you scribbled all over the margins of your notebooks both of your initials in hearts and their last name added onto your first just so you could see how it looks?</p><p>yeah, me neither.</p><p>edit: completely rewrote the last couple of paragraphs because i hated them. i think it flows much more naturally now.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ashley has a secret. One she will never, ever tell anyone even on pain of death. The secret is this: buried deep in a drawer filed with random bits and bobs is a journal. The journal in question is fairly innocuous looking all things considered, there’s a baby pug on the front cover wearing a pair of glasses and sleeping on top of a book, but it’s whats inside that can never see the light of day. The first few hundred or so pages are embarrassing enough on their own, filled with the unpolished writings of a twelve year-old’s imaginations, but it’s the last couple of pages in question that terrify her. So that being said, it’s not that it’s super traumatic or anything, or even that she’s murdered someone, or one that will cause everyone she loves and cares for to hate and shun her. It’s just super embarrassing, and the idea of anyone —<i>especially Chris</i>— finding out is enough to make her want to die.</p><p>So to the surprise of absolutely no one, <i>Josh</i> is the one who finds out about it.</p><p>She is thirteen years-old when the event occurs. It had been a fairly run of the mill day too, Josh and Chris were over to hang out and work on some homework together in her bedroom. Chris had excused himself to use the washroom and Ashley went to go and grab some more snacks from the kitchen, leaving Josh in her room. Alone. And unsupervised. You know, just the two things that Josh should never, ever be. She had just walked in with her arms loaded with a few cans of pop and a couple bags of chips only to be greeted by the sight of her best friend with the journal in question. And, of course, open to the last page. She’s pretty sure it’s not possible, but she swears in the moment that all color had drained from her face at the same time her ears were burning with the power of her blush.</p><p>She immediately dropped everything onto her bed with a shriek and dived at Josh frantically, trying to rip the thing from his hands, but seeing as he’s almost two years older than her and nearly two and a half feet taller, he held it out of reach above her head easily.</p><p>“GIve it back, give it back!” Before he can say a word, she takes her elbow and jams it right into the center of his gut as hard as she can, grabbing the book the instant he bends down with a grunt of pain.</p><p>“Holy shit, Connor wasn’t kidding about how goddamned sharp your elbows are when you accidentally hit him in gym, was he? That actually hurt!”</p><p>Ashley ignores him and holds the journal tightly to her chest, feeling the color return to her face as she just glowers furiously at him. “What the hell are you doing going through my stuff?!”</p><p>Josh shrugs. “My pen died and I forgot my pencil case at school, so I was trying to find one of yours. But more importantly,” he glances at the book held protectively in her arms, and she instinctively turns her body to hide it further. “I gotta say, I think you’re a little young to be thinking of marriage, Ash.”</p><p>She know’s her face is now red from the absolute embarrassment flooding her entire body. He had seen it, of course Josh had seen it. Her shame and dream all in one. A couple of the final pages were taken up by her name in the cursive forms of her signature, written not quite a year ago when she first got the notebook from Chris as a Christmas present. They had been practice as the autograph she was sure to need once she became a best-selling author. But sprinkled throughout, written in the same loopy font of her signature, was not the name Ashley Brown.</p><p>But the name Ashley Hartley.</p><p>“I can only wonder what exactly our Mr. Hartley would think if he knew that this existed! That you felt for him so strongly!”</p><p>“You can’t! You have to promise me that you won’t tell him!”</p><p>“And why would I do that? There’s absolutely nothing in this for me.”</p><p>Thinking quickly, she blurts out the first thing on her mind, “I’ll do your English homework for the rest of the school year.”</p><p>“Hmmm, tempting, but no. It would arise too much suspicion if my homework was suddenly getting A’s but I was still getting C’s on my tests.”</p><p>“I’ll buy you lunch everyday for a month.”</p><p>“A little better, but still weak.”</p><p>“I’ll tell Sam that you have a crush on her.”</p><p>“Oh ho! Threats now! I didn’t know you had it in you.”</p><p>“...I’ll tell <i>Emily</i> that you have crush on her.”</p><p>Josh’s eyes narrow but his smile widens. “Now that’s just playing dirty! But still a no.” He hums and haws for a moment, and Ashley starts to fidget nervously. Chris is going to get back from the bathroom any minute now and it’s bad enough that Josh read her journal, if Chris reads it then she’s literally going to <i>die</i>. “I got it.” He turns a wide, toothy grin on her and oh boy, her entire body seizes in fight-or-flight response. “You gotta swear that you’ll name your first born kid after me.”</p><p>What.</p><p>Ashley could feel the instant her mind did that whole record-scratch, freeze frame effect and she just stared at Josh like he had just lost his entire goddamned mind.</p><p>“You’ve lost your goddamned mind.”</p><p>“No, no. It’s perfect! I don’t tell Chris and all you have to do is just name your kid after me. Everyone wins!”</p><p>“I’m not naming my kid after you! What if it’s a girl?”</p><p>“Hey, Joshua is a perfectly serviceable unisex name. It’ll be fine.”</p><p>“It is not! I am not gonna name my hypothetical daughter Joshua!”</p><p>“Fine, fine. Joshlynn then. But that’s my final offer. Either you agree to this, or I tell Chris that you want to marry him and have his little nerdy babies who are not named Joshua in any way, shape, or form.”</p><p>Ashley thinks about this for a second, tossing around which is worse: her entirely hypothetical child being cursed with the knowledge of being named after Josh Washington or Chris finding out that she’s had a crush on him since, well, practically forever. The sound of a toilet flushing down the hall decides for her.</p><p>“Deal.” She sticks out her hand and shakes Josh’s, and hurriedly moves to throw her journal back into the drawer where it belongs, never to see the light of day again, just as Chris walks back into her bedroom. Her secret safe, but a part of her wonders at what cost, and what she has just sentenced her poor, poor unborn child to.</p><p>The journal stays in her drawers, forgotten and untouched, until Chris finds it years later.</p><p>The two of them have been dating for a couple of years now (and doing all the things that dating people do, like going on dates, and kissing, and holding hands, and <i>kissing</i>), a fact that continues to bring a smile to her face every time she thinks about it. In fact, the entire reason he finds it to begin with is because he’s helping her pack up her room so she can move into an apartment with him at the end of the month. It’s been nearly seven years now since she last thought of the journal, so she’s almost surprised when he pulls the thing out of the drawer and shows it to her.</p><p>“Oh wow, you still have this?”</p><p>Ashley laughs, shocked that he even recognizes it. “Have you ever known me to throw out a book of any kind? I can’t believe you even remember it honestly.”</p><p>“Well yeah, course I do. I spent ages in that stupid store trying to find you the perfect present. Think I was more worried about this then I was buying for anyone else that year.” He opens it to a random page and reads a couple of sentences on a page before bursting out laughing. “Wow. This is almost painful to read. Preteen you was clearly the literary genius of our time.”</p><p>Ashley laughs again, getting off of her bed and placing the snow globe in her hands into the partially full box next to her. “Oh shut up. I still bet it’s better than anything you’ve written in the past —oh, I don’t know— year.” She takes is back from him and flips through a couple of more pages before wincing. “Oh, eyuck. You’re not wrong. This is <i>bad</i>. Maybe I should just toss this one.”</p><p>Scandalized, Chris rips it back from her and holds it protectively to him, looking at her like she had just kicked the pug on the front of the journal. “Don’t you dare! This is a priceless antique. Proof that even the most illustrious of authors start from the awkward grammar stages of youth.” He ignores her eye-roll and returns to flipping through more pages, and laughs harder. “Wow, you practically filled the entire thing too. The last few pages are just you practicing your autograph.”</p><p>“What can I say, a future best-selling author like myself needs an easily recognizable signature. It’s practically a requirement.” She waits for his comeback, but is instead greeted with the image of him staring down at the pages with a slack-jawed look of amazement.</p><p><i>That’s</i> when she finally remembers exactly why this particular notebook was shoved in a drawer and not on her shelf with the others. And the solemn deal made in this bedroom nearly seven years ago. It wasn’t a secret anymore that the two of them had liked each other for some time, they had just never talked about how <i>long</i> that time had been. And this wasn’t exactly the way she had intended on him finding out.</p><p>“Listen, Chris, I can explain—”</p><p>He didn’t give her a chance to finish, he let the notebook fall through his fingers and drop to the floor as he advanced towards her, tangling his hand into her hair and kissing her for everything he was worth. She makes a surprised squeak when it happens, but doesn't hesitate to throw her arms around his neck to bring him closer, intent on giving back twice what he was giving her. Ashley could feel herself falling backwards onto the bed behind her and let it happen, landing awkwardly and somehow thankfully missing most of the scattered objects thrown on it. And despite feeling one of her books digging into the underside of her leg from where she landed on it, she still deepens the kiss when Chris moves his hands to push up her shirt slightly and rest them around the now bare area of her waist.   </p><p>Slowly, he pulled backwards and she can't help but giggle at the sight of his glasses now hanging a little lopsided on his face. They had been together two years now, and they were still just as clumsy as when they first started. Unwinding her arms from around his neck, she straightened them so they sat properly on his nose again, and felt her breath catch when she realized that he was looking at her as though he was seeing her for the first time, and it was the best sight he could have wished for. “So,” his voice was rough and oh, she could feel the shivers that the sound of it sent up her spine. “Ashley Hartley, huh?”</p><p>Ashley bit her lip and she could see his eyes drawn to it almost unconsciously (how she had ever mistaken <i>that</i> for what it really was, she'll never know). “Be honest with me, what do you think of the name Joshlynn?”</p>
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